[1][2][3] The structure is named for Dr. Robert C. Weaver, the first Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and the first African American Cabinet member.

[15] After a decade of discussion, public comment, and negotiations with landowners and developers, the Southwest Urban Renewal Plan was approved in November 1956.

He had built curvilinear precast concrete buildings before in France: UNESCO Headquarters in Paris and the IBM Research Center in La Gaude.

[20] The final design resembles that of a giant capital letter "X" with an elongated spine and four bilateral, symmetrical, curving arms.

[4] Although the plaza was devoid of plants, its shape and vast expanse were designed to relate aesthetically to the nearby National Mall.

[26] The window frames on the eighth, ninth, and tenth floors were slightly thinner, because although they were not load-bearing they had to contain HVAC piping.

[26] The panels on the middle floors required the least amount of fabrication, according to architect Herbert Beckhard (an associate in Breuer's firm who helped design the building), as they did not need to bear as much load nor contain much piping.

[21][27] The V-shaped columns taper to a narrow base that creates a more open, "lighter" appearance at ground level and whose angularity contrasts with the building's curving facade.

[26] An Oscar Stonorov bust of Catherine Bauer Wurster, an influential public housing advocate in the 1930s, adorns the building's Main (South) lobby.

Not a single positive comment about the plaza was given by HUD workers in a 1979 survey, and employees strongly criticized the lack of seating in the space.

[37] Signage, lighting, identification of entrances, and the regulation of pedestrian traffic in the plaza, the Project for Public Spaces told HUD (which had commissioned a study of the building), were so poor that they were characterized as a "disaster".

[24] Rather than merely fix the leak, HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros encouraged GSA to renovate or reconstruct the plaza to make it more worker- and pedestrian-friendly.

[24] In 1990, Martha Schwartz, a nationally recognized Massachusetts-based landscape architect known for her unconventional and colorful designs, was commissioned to redesign the plaza.

Schwartz initially envisioned low, round, concrete planters containing grass that would double as seating, and donut-shaped canopies of brightly colored plastic (lit from within at night) set upon 18-foot steel poles to provide shelter from the sun and rain.

Cuomo is alleged to have disliked the canopies and feared that the brightly colored plastic would draw public ridicule, and so pressed for alterations.

[38][39] Schwartz also designed a back-lit mural composed of images of HUD-financed building projects to be installed on the granite wall under the loggia, but this was canceled due to cost concerns.

[4] The New York Times said the building "is a handsome, functional structure that adds quality design and genuine 20th century style to a city badly in need of both.

"[4] In 1998, The Washington Post architectural critic called the building "impressive...a brooding, strangely graceful concrete honeycomb.

... Mr. Breuer's sculptural style, named 'brutalism' for 'béton brut' (French for 'raw concrete'), has come to represent the worst aspects of modern architecture: stark, unfriendly buildings fronted by empty plazas.

"It looks as though a battalion of seven flying saucers has floated down to Earth in front of the Department of Housing and Urban Development," wrote the Washington City Paper.

"[W]hat stands on HUD's plaza today is not so much the homage to shelter Schwartz originally intended as a token of capitulation.

Seven ghostly spaceships appear to be hovering comfortably above its front yard, keeping watch over an orderly gathering of white-rimmed, ground-hugging disks shouldering healthy mounds of grass.